Nearly 27,000 students throughout the state voted to choose the winners of the 2012 Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Award and Louisiana Teen Readers’ Choice Award. The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by David Roberts was the top choice of third through fifth graders while 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass received the most votes from middle school students. This is the first year to have ninth through 12th grade students participating. The Louisiana Teen Readers’ Choice Award for 2012 goes to Hate List by Jennifer Brown.

Nearly 2,000 Louisiana high school students participated in this inaugural year by reading close to 4,000 books this year.

“The State Library of Louisiana’s expansion of the Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice program allows our state’s high school students to have a voice in the recognition of great literature,” Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne said. “Students can now participate in this literacy program from elementary school through graduation, taking those skills of independent reading with them.”

Voting day is an exciting time in many schools and libraries throughout Louisiana as students cast their votes, sometimes using voting machines supplied by the Secretary of State’s Voter Outreach Division.

“We began this program 13 years ago in an effort to pursue one of the core missions of the State Library of Louisiana—to foster a culture of literacy in our citizens beginning with our children,” State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton said. “We know that once our children become readers they can achieve much more throughout their formal education.”

The Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Award is a reading enrichment program of the State Library of Louisiana underwritten by Dr. James R. and Ann A. Peltier with additional support by PermaBound Books. It is a model collaborative reading program involving students, teachers and public librarians in all regions of the state.

For information about the program including previous winners and this year’s second place winners, as well as a list of books nominated for next year’s awards visit www.state.lib.la.us and click on Literacy and Reading, then on Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Award.